[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

They are. I'm not sure if they are descendants of those that remained behind or those that came back tho.

Maybe but that doesn't help the cause of the NDP.

[Fireblade]

Prior to the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, the Acadians lived for almost 80 years in Acadia. After the Conquest they lived under British rule for the next forty-five years. During the French and Indian War, British colonial officers and New England legislators and militia executed the Great Expulsion of 1755-1763. They deported approximately 11,500 Acadians from the maritime region. Approximately one third perished from disease and drowning. One historian compared this event to a contemporary ethnic cleansing while other historians have suggested the event is comparable with other deportations in history.

lol. Nobody does ethnic cleansing better than the English.

Edit: So I just took some "Who Should I Vote For in Canada" quiz and it said: 100% Bloc, 90% NDP, 70% Green, 60% Liberal, and 0% Conservative. 

[Grey Fox]

Do this one :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/votecompass/

[Fireblade]

Do this one :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/votecompass/

I am closest to the Greens, but I was right beside the NDP and Bloc too.

Btw, I set my province to "British Columbia" (because let's face it, if I immigrate to Canada, that would be the PERFECT province for me ) and my riding to "Vancouver South". There was no option for "Hi, I'm an American and what is this?"

[crazy canuck]

The Liberals had many faults. Chrétien governed with an iron fist, and intervened everywhere. But I have no recollection of similar contempt for Parliament procedure and its sovereignty. But if you have examples, I will be happy to include them in my criticism...

I ascribe no value at all to the recent contempt of parliament motion.  As I said earlier in the thread it was more akin to a "we dont like you" motion.  I would have been more concerned if the speaker, acting in his quasi judicial role, made such a finding but he never went that far even though the opposition sought such a ruling.  So what we ended up with was really a motion to bring down the government dressed up to look as damning as possible.

But I am not sure you are talking about the motion itself. 

As for Chretian, almost all government decisions were vetted/instigated by the PMO - one of the reasons it is had to understand how the corruption investigations didnt result if convictions didnt go further up then they did.

I would tend to agree with him. The very average quality of most Parliamentarians might be overrated; our media world, with clear focus on very few individuals, might favour republican models to the detriment of parliamentarism. But it might also be a self-perpetuating system: a very strong executive renders the need for independant-willed MPs redundant.

The few politicians the media puts in the spotlight are themselves average.   This is a change.  It was not so long ago that both Conservatives and Liberals could point to a number of very talented people.  Debates were even entertaining and dare I say stimulating at times.   But that was an age when it was still honourable to become a politician.


Whether the creation of a strong executive caused this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem although I agree that a strong executive does prevent independant action and so we might have some diamonds in the rough that we will never know about.  I also tend to think that politics is not a choice most successful talented people would choose.  Given the kinds of sacrifices polticians have to make I often wonder why anyone is attracted to it.

[crazy canuck]

Do this one :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/votecompass/

I am pegged equally between the Liberals and Conservatives situated on the median between social liberalism and social conservatism and to the economic right.

edit: when I further modified the results by picking the issues of importance to me I was situated in the top right quandrant.  Social Liberal and economic conservative.

[Neil]

Why is the NDP set to take big losses? Aren't both the Liberals and Conservatives basically discredited at this point?

Not really.  That's like saying that you should vote Libertarian because the Republicans and Democrats are discredited.  No matter how far the main parties fall, when the alternatives are fucking loons, you generally have to wince and vote for a real candidate.

[crazy canuck]

Why is the NDP set to take big losses? Aren't both the Liberals and Conservatives basically discredited at this point?

The Conservatives are doing well in the polls and stand a good chance to form a majority government.  They are far from discredited at this point which is what makes the decision to bring down the government so odd.

The Liberals will try their best to descredit the Conservatives during the election and try to move those polling numbers.  They have to hope Harper makes a mistake.

The prediction that the NDP will lose seats is based on their current polling numbers and the fact they are becoming irrelevant as their union base shrinks.

[viper37]

How did Harper make a coalition politically impossible?

He made its possibility sound like a poison; like the worst thing that could happen to democracy--to the point that the Liberal leader said that there won't be a coalition.  Even though, he likes to forget, that he tried to form a coaliton with "socialists and separatists" himself in 04.

According to Duceppe and Layton in 2004, that is not true.  They both said there was no coallition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkdXycwDUxA&feature=player_embedded

Seems the left is trying hard to distort the truth, again.  <sigh>

[crazy canuck]

How did Harper make a coalition politically impossible?

He made its possibility sound like a poison; like the worst thing that could happen to democracy--to the point that the Liberal leader said that there won't be a coalition.  Even though, he likes to forget, that he tried to form a coaliton with "socialists and separatists" himself in 04.

Josephus is being very careful not to mention the real issue.  The last time the opposition tried to bring down the government -  a couple years ago, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc signed a formal coalition agreement that they would jointly form government when the government fell.  Harper avoided the non confidence vote by ending that session of parliament prior to the non confidence motion being tabled in Parliament.

It turned out that this coalition idea was very unpopular and probably saved Harper from his tactic of ending that session of Parliament.  To the extent people were upset at Harper most people were even more unhappy with the idea that the Liberals would try to take control of the government through this formal coalition agreement.

The moved spelled the end of Dion's tenure as Liberal leader and there was such a crisis that the Liberals abandoned their leadership convention and simply appointed Iggy as their leader.  Iggy quickly moved away from the coalition deal and he has been trying to distance the Liberals from that ever since.

Harper is simply trying to rekindle the visceral reaction Canadians had to the idea.

[Jacob]

I find the way that whole thing played out quite interesting.

Personally, I'm fine with a coalition and think it's a fine way to run a country; the Scandinavian countries do fine with it and I don't think the UK is faring too badly either.

On the other hand, if there is such a visceral opposition to it amongst the broader Canadian population then fair enough, we shouldn't have a coalition government. The thing that's not completely clear to me is how much that "visceral opposition" is real and how much it's a chimera created by Harper's team.

[crazy canuck]

The thing that's not completely clear to me is how much that "visceral opposition" is real and how much it's a chimera created by Harper's team.

I think you only have to look at how fast Iggy is too say he wont do it.

It was a master stroke for the Conservatives.  Their greatest fear had to be that they would be in another minority position and that the other parties would try to form government.  Iggy's protestations to the contrary now make that politically impossible.

And there is no downside.  If Iggy had kept the possibility open the Conservatives would have won a Majority as most people would not want to see an NDP Federal cabinet minister.

You can understand why Harper wanted to raise that issue at the start of the election.  Now he really has nothing to lose as likely he will be returned with another minority government and there is a chance he might win a majority, although Iggy would really have to stub his toe for that to happen.

[Josephus]

Josephus is being very careful not to mention the real issue.  The last time the opposition tried to bring down the government -  a couple years ago, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc signed a formal coalition agreement that they would jointly form government when the government fell.  Harper avoided the non confidence vote by ending that session of parliament prior to the non confidence motion being tabled in Parliament.

It turned out that this coalition idea was very unpopular and probably saved Harper from his tactic of ending that session of Parliament.  To the extent people were upset at Harper most people were even more unhappy with the idea that the Liberals would try to take control of the government through this formal coalition agreement.

The moved spelled the end of Dion's tenure as Liberal leader and there was such a crisis that the Liberals abandoned their leadership convention and simply appointed Iggy as their leader.  Iggy quickly moved away from the coalition deal and he has been trying to distance the Liberals from that ever since.

Harper is simply trying to rekindle the visceral reaction Canadians had to the idea.

[/quote]

I'm not denying any of that. Who can forget the only time Parliament was prorogued and Harper running off to the GG; suspending parliament and thus avoiding a no-confidence vote.

B'ut the very notion that Coalitions are "bad" are purely a Harper invention; especially since he wanted to form one himself a few years before.  Harper is using propaganda to get across the idea that the government would be unstable and run by socialists and separatists and that it wouldn't have the support of Canadians -- a rather interesting notion from a guy who has the support of less than 40 per cent of Canadians.

However I will give his propaganda machine some credit, since it does seem to be working, and that's why Iggy is running away from that as much as he can.

Coalitions are part of several  good western and democratic countries(Britain, for one) and part of the parliamentary ideal. As the leader of the party with most seats, Harper has first dibs on forming a government; but our constitution allows the opposition to form a coalition and rule instead.

Harper is simply trying to rekindle the visceral reaction Canadians had to the idea.

A bit hyperbolic. The Conservative Party had a visceral reaction, not sure about Canadians. In fact I remember some kind of protest at Parliament Hill at the notion of Harper suspending Parliament to prevent a constitutionally allowed non-confidence vote.

[Josephus]

"What will be the test is whether there is any party in opposition that's able to form a coalition, a working alliance with the others," ______ said in a TVO interview.


Who said the above, taken from a 1997 TV interview?

to find out this, and more:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/963440--coalition-monkey-continues-to-dog-harper?bn=1

[Neil]

It's funny how all the NDP types are trying to defend the indefensible.